Palo Alto kicks off a Heritage Month to honor both Mexicans and Native Americans

By Silvia Foster-Frau, Staff Writer

Published 12:21 pm, Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Jose Vasconcelos, an early 20th century Mexican philospher, took a good, hard look at the Mexican people and called them the future of mankind.

In a 1925 essay called “The Cosmic Race,” he spoke of a world that would transcend today’s notions of race and ethnicity, where across the cosmos, traditional racial boundaries have disappeared and all people are mixed race — all races have blended into one.

“Through this fusion, this mestizaje that we are, we unite the races and the blood of all the races in the world,” said Juan Tejeda, a faculty adviser for the Center for Mexican American Studies at Palo Alto College, echoing Vasconcelos’ words at the college’s courtyard Monday during the kickoff of its own Heritage Month celebration, which continues through Nov. 14.

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The Yanaguana Drummers played native river songs on pow-wow style drums, music carried down from Coahuiltecan ancestors. The Indigenauts played cumbia-fused rock, explaining before their song the theory that the small step of the cumbia dance mimics the steps of those with feet in shackles — a slave’s protest in dance form.

“The food, the speakers, the music, the gathering reinforces our culture, our history,” Tejeda said. “It’s about those age-old questions: Who are we? Who am I? What am I here for? We have to know where we are to know where we’re going.”

Three years ago, Tejeda combined Hispanic Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month at the college to honor the intertwined legacies of both groups — as much as many Mexican Americans have Spanish ancestry, he said, they also have ancestry from the native tribes that once occupied Southwest Texas and beyond.

“(Monday) many people have a holiday, they’re off work celebrating Columbus Day. But we have turned this holiday around. It’s an anti-Columbus day celebration,” said Tejeda, at which point cheers erupted from an audience of at least 50 people. “In fact, it’s an indigenous people’s day celebration.”

Listening intently only a few feet away from the podium was student Sam Sanchez, 21, who identifies as part Native American and is a member of the college’s LGBTQ club, the Palomino Alliance Coalition. He said his alliance helped organize Heritage Month because they are kindred spirits.

“We found camaraderie in that a lot of our history, unfortunately, has been stripped away and not shed light upon,” he said. “We also found that, other than just the fact that we’ve been abused, is that we’re strong and we celebrate ourselves.”

Last year, San Antonio and Bexar County joined a growing list of local governments across the country that officially recognize Indigenous Peoples Day on Columbus Day. This year, the state of Vermont and the cities of Phoenix and Denver also proclaimed Indigenous Peoples Day.

Advocates of the indigenous recognition point out that, although Christopher Columbus has been lauded as an intrepid explorer who colonized the land that would later become the United States, the history of destruction that accompanied his arrival to North America in 1492 has been largely ignored.

Tejeda said that the shame of having indigenous heritage has persisted through the centuries. He said he hopes Monday’s celebrations and the events to follow throughout Heritage Month will empower local Tejanos to find value in their Native American roots.

“There is a lot of history that’s been wiped of the record. And this is a time for people to say ‘Hey, this is who I am. This connects me to the world,’” Sanchez said. “You would never know there were this many people that care about who you are and what you are. And that’s so heart-warming, and it makes you feel like you’re not so alone when you’re dealing with so many harsh things out there.”